The Brazilian remembers more and more André Gomes, another player who seemed made to measure for Barça, but ended up unhappy and overwhelmed

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The soccer moves without compassion his hierarchical scales, old certainty that now stalks Coutinho, who only participated three minutes in the party of Leo Messi in the Villamarín. He joined the young Aleñá when the game was more than sentenced and the changes had no tactical significance. Basketball coined decades ago a term to define that inconsequential final period: minutes of garbage.

Nobody suspected a year ago a moment so delicate and difficult to digest for Coutinho. He arrived at Barça in January 2018, after a long and almost desperate negotiation of Barça with Liverpool. He was more than just a great signing. It was a decision of great strategic scope, because it placed the Brazilian player as a guarantee of stability in two worrying questions for the future of Barça. On the one hand, closing the wound that Neymar had opened with his jump to Paris Saint Germain. On the other, ensure the succession of Iniesta.

The two cases seemed difficult to solve, but nobody like Coutinho seemed in a better position to fix the double problem. Liverpool guessed perfectly the needs of Barça and the Neymar effect in the brutal price escalation in the market. In June of 2017, Coutinho was worth 70 million. Three months later it cost 150 million.

Coutinho had taken off at Liverpool after a difficult landing in Europe. Junior star of Brazilian football, he joined Inter Milan at age 18, an impatient club by nature. Wait a little and fagocita a lot. He went through Espanyol, returned to Italy and finished at Liverpool. He became an idol of Anfield, favored by his phenomenal society with Luis Suarez. It was the perfect match for a team that was a centimeter away from winning the Premier League and ending the torment that pursues the Reds. They have not won the English championship since 1990.

If one of the two offered the most suitable profile to play at Barça, it was Coutinho, a refined player, with class and goal. Nobody saw contraindications, unlike Luis Suarez, a top scorer in Ajax and Liverpool, but without the classic subtleties attributed to the Barça model. However, the story has been written very differently. Suarez will be remembered as one of the two or three most important forwards in the history of Barça. Coutinho runs the risk of passing without leaving the slightest trace.